


Education

by marmolita



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-08 00:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7736008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmolita/pseuds/marmolita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elektra has never known anything but the war.  Born into the war, raised on the Chaste's lore, trained to fight since before she can remember -- there is nothing else for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Education

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "training" square on my Daredevil bingo card! Thanks to [r3zuri](http://r3zuri.tumblr.com) for beta.

Elektra has never known anything but the war. Born into the war, raised on the Chaste's lore, trained to fight since before she can remember -- there is nothing else for her.

***

These are her earliest memories:

  1. Sitting in the corner, chewing on the corner of her shirt, watching Stick sparring with one of his allies. The thump and crack of his feet and fists slamming into his opponent's flesh, the grunts and heavy breathing. A spray of blood falling hot and wet over her arm. 
  2. Breathing deeply, in and out, trying to follow Stick's instructions to meditate, unable to quiet her mind. A fly buzzes near the ceiling; dishes clank in the kitchen. Something inside her flickers angrily. 
  3. The sharp pain in the side of her hand as she slams it into the training post, again and again. Left, right, left, right, block, duck, right, right, left. Her hands smack into the wood; the pain becomes nothing as she absorbs it into herself. She smells blood.



Her life with Stick is lived in measured, scheduled intervals. Wake up, training, breakfast, studying, training, lunch, training, studying, dinner, training, sleep. Sometimes, Stick lets her watch TV with him in the evening. It's like watching another universe, where girls her age are skipping rope and playing with dolls.

"Why aren't they training for the war?" she asks him one night, watching a family sitcom where the most important issue of the day is whether or not the teenage daughter will be allowed to get a part-time job.

Stick laughs, unsurprisingly. "Those kids don't know shit about the war. Me and you, Ellie, we do this so they don't have to ever know."

She doesn't ask _why do we have to do this_ or _why can't I be a normal kid._ It doesn't even occur to her.

***

Before she gets handed over to the Natchios family, Stick trains her to be elegant. He makes her watch movies, mimic postures, mimic language. He brings in a tutor to teach her Greek.

Still, when Ellie becomes Elektra Natchios, she enters stage two of her training. She knows how to be a soldier but now she has to learn to navigate the world of the social elite. Her new parents send her to school -- she's seen school on TV but experiencing it is entirely different. Stick had told her she'd have to make friends, but she's never had a friend and doesn't quite know how to interact with the other students, who all seem so very young. She doesn't know how to talk to someone who's never killed before.

She doesn't know how to be nice.

She excels in academics and sports, thinking it might earn her the respect of her classmates. Instead, it just garners jealousy and hate. But if Elektra learned one thing from Stick, it's that she's special, that she has abilities other people don't have and that she's important, so she doesn't pretend to be anything she's not. She doesn't fail exams on purpose or let other people win at sports.

If sometimes she cries at night, alone in her room, who is there to know?

***

Her education in social skills moves into a new phase when she's 14 or 15 years old, and boys and men start to notice her more. The girls who hated her before, for being a show off, for being stuck up, hate her now because boys want her. She decides it doesn't matter, because she's learning that her looks can get her things that she wants. Her looks can get her the illusion of friendship, the illusion of love, and that's almost as good as the real thing.

Elektra learns. She learns to manipulate people. She learns to be the ice queen she's been accused of being. She learns to let words roll off her back and to walk through life unperturbed, to lock her emotions up inside and throw away the key.

After all, that's what Stick told her she'd have to do. The war is coming and she can't afford to have any attachments.

He finds her when she's on holiday in the south of France, twenty years old and living off her trust fund. Seeing him again after all these years is like a punch in the gut, but she's not the same girl she was when he left her so she doesn't show it. "Oh, it's you," she says dismissively. "I thought you'd be dead by now."

Stick just laughs. "I've got a mission for you, Ellie. Show me how much you've learned."

***

There is nothing else for Elektra but the war, nothing in her life that has ever been as important as that. It's what she's trained for. She's ready, so much more ready for everything than anyone else could be. She's prepared to fight, prepared to manipulate, prepared to kill.

The one thing she's not prepared for is Matthew Murdock.


End file.
